Reflections, excerpts, and stories along the way.
The Storm at Home
An excerpt from In Hindsight
September 26, 2026
Storms within our home were as commonplace as hurricane season is in Miami. I think I was around seven or eight years old. One afternoon, our neighbor Linda, who our family was very close with and who lived a couple houses down from us, asked my sister Maya, as she had done many times before, to go to the corner store for her. We loved going to the store for the adults because they would tell us to keep the change, and with that change we’d get a bag of chips, a Little Debbie cake, or candy. Back then, fifty cents or a dollar went a long way. Maya asked me to come with her. I rode on the back of the bike, holding onto her tightly as she pedaled the half mile up the street to the local corner store. On our way there, we could hear the thunder and see the storm clouds rolling in, but we were hoping and praying to make it to the store and back before the rain. We really wanted to have our reward of snacks.
By the time we came out of the store, the rain was coming down hard. I remember my sister pedaling back so fast. Even though we didn’t say many words on the way home, it’s as if telepathically we both knew we were going to be in serious trouble because not only was it raining, the thunder was so loud, and bright bolts of lightning filled the sky. It was by the grace of God that we weren’t struck or that our bicycle didn’t succumb to the thick puddles. I don’t even know how she was able to see through the thick raindrops flying toward us, but somehow she did. We made it to our neighbor’s house, quickly dropped off her groceries, and then quickly climbed back onto the bicycle to make our way home.
There was an unimaginable level of trepidation that fell upon us as we opened the front door. I have never forgotten the details of that day. As Maya and I entered the front door, there was our mother sitting in the middle of the living room with a belt in her hand, and all our siblings stood around her, quiet and still. It was an extraordinary production for two children who had gone to the corner store for a neighbor.
This piece is adapted from In Hindsight, a reflective memoir by Waseme Z. Marcelin.
More excerpts from In Hindsight will be shared here.
Before I Found My Voice
An excerpt from In Hindsight
September 2, 2026
My mom told me I didn’t begin speaking until I was about four years old. I was shy and observant, much more comfortable taking things in. I didn’t like my name, Waseme, so in kindergarten I cried to my mom, “I want to change my name to Rose!” It was often hard for students and teachers to pronounce and I was never the quintessential child who loved the spotlight or attention it brought on. I wasn’t outspoken, and I certainly wasn’t the child who wanted everyone in the room to hear what I had to say. But very early on, I discovered another way to express myself: I wrote. By the time I was seven years old, I had filled notebook after notebook with stories and songs. My thoughts flowed onto paper in ways they never seemed to through conversation. With a pencil in my hand, I could place words on paper and organize my thoughts easily.
In first grade, one of my teachers, Mrs. Waters, wrote on the back of a writing assignment, Remember me when you’re a famous author. I never forgot that and I kept that paper with me for years. At some point, I was given a small diary with a tiny metal lock affixed to it. It probably looked like an inexpensive little girl’s diary, but to me, it was sacred. For the first time, I could write down my fears, questions, observations. Then one day, the lock was pried off. My older sister Nadia found my diary and began reading my private thoughts aloud to the rest of my family. What I had written for myself became entertainment for everyone else. They laughed as I stood there listening, completely exposed, while pages that had once made me feel safe were turned into a source of humiliation. The entry they found funniest was one I had written after witnessing something I couldn’t understand.
One afternoon, my mother had a man over to the house. Her bedroom door was locked, which immediately made me curious. I knocked and knocked and heard laughing on the other side. I was a child, and locked doors made me wonder what was happening on the other side. I went outside, found a bucket, dragged it beneath her bedroom window, and climbed on top so I could peek inside. What I saw through that window shocked me. My knees buckled, my stomach tightened, and I nearly fell from the bucket. I ran back inside frightened and confused, unable to make sense of what I had just witnessed. I had no concept of sex. I wasn’t looking for anything inappropriate. I did the one thing that had always come naturally to me. I wrote about it. My diary became the place where I tried to make sense of something my young mind couldn’t understand. Yet when those writings were discovered, instead of anyone recognizing the confusion of a child, it became a subject of scrutiny. My mother was angry with me. I was yelled at and embarrassed, and somehow I walked away feeling ashamed for witnessing something that was unintentional.
This piece is adapted from In Hindsight, a reflective memoir by Waseme Z. Marcelin.
More excerpts from In Hindsight will be shared here.
Finally Making Time For This
An Excerpt from: The Things That Keep Us Busy by Waseme Z. Marcelin -August 26, 2026
I have been so excited to finally write this book.
And yes, it took me long enough.
The irony is not lost on me.
I have wanted to write about distractions for quite some time, but I have also been incredibly distracted by all the things I genuinely love doing in my everyday life. I’ve been traveling, moving to another country with my husband and our three young children, getting settled into a new home, helping my children adjust to new schools, meeting new people, working out, and taking better care of my mental and physical health. That has included therapy, regular trips to the gym, and the occasional massage or facial at the spa because, quite honestly, once a month is about all I have time for.
Phew.
And maybe that is the perfect place to begin, because distractions are not necessarily bad.
I used to think of distraction as something obvious, something that was clearly wasting my time or pulling me in the wrong direction. But I’ve learned that a distraction can also look like a very full and meaningful life. It can look like family, travel, friendship, exercise, healing, volunteering, opportunity, helping, celebrating, or simply enjoying yourself.
There can be wonderful things in your life that still require your time, energy, and attention. And if you aren’t intentional about how much space they occupy, even good things can begin crowding out something else that matters.
I know because I’ve lived it.
There was a version of me who was an overwhelmed, people-pleasing, glorified savior to just about everyone who called on me. If somebody had a problem, I was already halfway inside of it trying to figure out what I could do. I volunteered, helped, fixed, carried, listened, and showed up.
For a long time, I thought this was simply who I was.
Dependable. Helpful. Generous. Loving.
And some of it was.
But eventually, all of that availability wore me out. I became resentful, overstimulated, emotionally drained, and stretched far too thin. Too many people had access to me, and too many commitments filled my schedule. There was very little room left for my own development, my health, my peace, my marriage, my children, my thoughts, my dreams, or even enough quiet to ask myself what I actually wanted.
By the time I approached my upper thirties, I could see clearly that I was everywhere, doing everything under the sun, while far too many of those things were doing very little to enrich my life.
Something had to change.
Slowly, it did.
I began looking more carefully at what I was giving my time to and what I was carrying. I started questioning things I had agreed to simply because I had always agreed to them. Some things required boundaries. Some people needed less access to me. Some commitments needed to be reduced, and some things simply needed to end.
I didn’t learn any of this overnight, and I am still making adjustments. But my life has become quieter, lighter, and far more peaceful. I love this for me.
